TFG1MIKE 365 – 2026 Day 110 – Tomorrow Never Dies Album Review!

Tomorrow Never Dies 2 Disc Limited Edition – Album Review!

Hello all and welcome to a NEW Daily Blog series from me… TFG1Mike! The idea here is for me to write something, anything, once a day for 365 days. From January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2026. In my 110th entry of 2026, I’ll be talking about the film score to Tomorrow Never Dies!

La La Land Records released this in November 29, 2022, and I can’t believe it has taken me this long to get to it. I LOVE The BROSNAN ERA BOND films THAT is MY Bond Era I GREW UP with GOLDENEYE, TOMORRROW NEVER DIES, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, AND DIE ANOTHER DAY! I was 15, 17, 19, and 22 years old when each of those films were released respectively.

The POINT is I LOVE this film. In turn I love the David Arnold score to the film. But wait….. Spotify says the score was done by Nicholas Dodd!! And this AFTER I loaded in the 2 CD Set from La-La Land Records! So I went on a researcher’s journey … before going any further! And this is what I found:

Nicholas Dodd is a British arranger, conductor and composer, primarily known for his orchestration work for David Arnold ‘s soundtracks such as Stargate, Independence Day, and all the James Bond films composed by Arnold! This is confirmed by the CD cover as you can see in the featured image, as well as the disc art here:

So Nicholas Dodd was the Orchestrator/Conductor and David Arnold is and was the Composer. The confusion comes in where Spotify pulls from specific metadata where Dodd is credited instead of Arnold. And so now that we have that outta the way…. let’s get into this, shall we?!

Getting into David Arnold’s score here… There are 46 tracks here. 32 of the 46 tracks are the film’s score presentation. Tracks 9-22 are listed as “additional music” on Disc 2, and they include the original versions of  White Knight, Backseat Pilot, Sinking of the Devonshire, Paris and Bond, Bike Shop Fight, and more!

I am having to go back and re watch the film for certain scenes for certain cues. I’m not complaining here, but I need to remember the scenes and bring my brain up to speed with the music!

I’m writing this, and my review for THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH score 5 days before the entire James Bond film catalog leaves Netflix. I just finished watching TND, and damn what a film!

Track 1: “Score Presentation-White Knight”: I’ve always said in everything, everywhere…. in whatever I do…. Whether that be a podcast, a youtube video, a written review, anything…. I love paying attention to the music in films, cartoons, tv shows, and the like. After that I LOVE hearing the music outside the media that they are in! Hearing the music outside of the opening scene to the film here, I can visualize the scene in my head, and I love that about music. I love that the instrumentals in this guide my brain to each section of the scene that I know plays out. From the quiet moments to the heavy action moments! That’s why this is one of my favorite tracks!

Track 3: “Tomorrow Never Dies” – Sheryl Crow: So we had the Queen Tina Turner on GoldenEye! And Now we have the 90s superstar Sheryl Crow on the title track here. Her voice blends into the soft instrumental parts of the song, but I feel like it gets drown out in the bombastic parts. Her voice is sweet and strong enough to carry through the tune, but there’s a moment from 1:20 to 1:30 where I thought Sheryl’s voice got lost under the instrumental… it doesn’t. It matches it and then fades through to the next section of the song. Just amazing!

Track 6: “Company Car (Extended Version)”: Bond and Q back at it. Will you need collision coverage? LOL! I love Desmond and Pierce’s acting together! Dare I say Brosnan was the best actor that worked with Desmond as Q. Remote controlled car!!!! “Well let’s see how she responds to my touch eh Q.” The way the composer works the Bond theme throughout this little scene is great. This is the beginning to what we get later in Track 18, which might be my favorite track of the whole album.

Track 8: “Station Break”: Where Bond is being tortured by the henchmen, and Carver is trying to launch is global media network! Bond breaks free, and then vuts the connections to Carver’s media network. Talk about an immediate embarrassment! The ending tones in this track… the sadness of it all, the desperation! It just works with the scene so well, because you think Elliot will win and go on the air, but then Bond says, “I think we’ve reached our station break.” And the music just encapsulates the whole scene! Love this track!!

Track 18: “Backseat Driver (Film Version)”!: OHHHHH YEAH!!! THIS is my favorite track off of this score, outside of Sheryl Crow singing the title track! I always loved the backseat remote controlled Bond in the car scene! And having the music outside of the film here…. HELL YES!!! This might be the longest paragraphed section I write here. I currently have this track on BLAST and REPEAT!

The reason why I neeeeeeeeeeeeded to pay attention to this in the film was it grabbed my attention at the intro of it, but we had everything going on in the scene. As you’ll see in the video above. The music starts, we hear a little bit of it, but then the explosions, the gunfire, the female car voice. AND YES I GET IT everything in a film is SUPPOSED to work together. What I’m saying is that as I’ve said before… I love that soundtrack scores allow my brain to envision the scene in my head without the rest of the noises. I’m not saying anything bad about the full scene put together. Because I love the full scene together.

I’m just saying having this track BLASTING in my ears on repeat at 96% volume right now as I type this… I FEEL the scene, every moment of it. From when Bond jumps into the car, to the ending tones when he has the car drive off the rooff of the car garage and land in the Avis Car Rental Office! This track is sooo good to me, I might even throw it into my “Faves” playlist on Spotify! At 4:03 is when the song fades down to the notes I was talking about, and then fades out. I absolutely love that.

Track 23: “Bike Chase”: THEEEEEEEE BIKE CHASE!!! This was HUUUUUGGGGEEEE back then, and even now!! Motorcycle Vs Helicopter! It was epic, it was slightly different on how they pulled it off, and how long this chase was…. WOWZERS!!! One of the best scenes of the film!!  Love this track!!

Track 25: “Ha Long Bay”: I love the middle of this tune, the slowed down part of it, with almost the tear drop effects the music has. This is from the scene where they are hunting for the stealth boat. It’s such a good track, and in the film it allows Bond and Wai Lin to talk!!

Track 43: “Backseat Driver”: I’m not sure I can tell the differences between this version and the film version of this track. They both sound the same, and they both come in at the same time length of 4:36! So…. hmmm…. I love how both versions Start and end… might be my most favorite track out of any Bond score ever, that is outside of the main theme!!

Final Thoughts: TND is an amazing action film, and for Brosnan’s second outing as James Bond it’s superb! David Arnold’s score here is high action with some slow moments as well. Everything is well balanced. As I’ve already said, I absolutely love Sheryl Crow singing the title track! If you are a film score fan and you are a JAMES BOND fan, you’ll wanna add this to your collection any way you can! Sadly the physical CD at La-La Land Records is SOLD OUT, but you can add it to your Wishlist on their site right HERE! Ya never know when it might come back in stock for a limited time, since next year is the 30th Anniversary of the film. One can only hope right?

We have brought back The GCRN Universal Ratings System in a BRAND NEW BRANDING!!! It’s The GCRN GEEK METER! And my rating for this CD soundtrack release is:

Join me next time when I’ll be writing about something! <— I’ve stopped putting tomorrow or the dates here, because I dunno if I’m gonna write the next day or not. I’ve tried to write more this year though, and the year ain’t over yet…